Monday, July 10, 2006

Ummm, no...

A bitch hopes y’all had a fantabulous weekend. C-Money and this bitch have discovered Netflix and all things DVD related. Yeah, a bitch is slow to adapt to new technology. Part of the issue is that I have a lot of VHS films and why the fuck should a bitch be forced to upgrade? Gets my back up.

The other problem is that a bitch isn’t terribly fond of change.

Anyhoo, C-Money hooked up our new DVD/VHS playing machine and it was on up in our house! Enron – The Smartest Guys in the Room and The Candidate were viewed back to back.

Fantabulous!

Moving forward…

This bitch was intrigued by the many comments to my post on bullying. To respond just a wee bit to the comment by Part Time Instructor.

Now, one of my few pet peeves is ‘oppression offs’…where various groups attempt to out do each other on how much The Man has treated them more like shit.

Oppression offs get folks no where, accomplish nothing and insult the legacy of those oppressed.

Having said that, a bitch suspects you are searching for a sameness between racist bullying and the bullying of your youth…a sameness that this bitch rejects.

Now, don't fret...a bitch may be angry but my ass is not unkind (wink).

To explore...

My childhood bully used racism as a tool and, by doing so, harnessed years of violent oppression and implied a level of violent response far beyond the beat down my ass took after break. Since a bitch grew up less than 5 minutes from where the local klan met...and still meets to this day...to discuss the issue of 'those black people moving into their part of town', the implied violence behind her use of the language of racism was a very real thing.

Yes, your bully and my bully were using predictable hooks to get a response and cause distress.

No, the hooks used were not the same.

Unless a bitch is lacking in my understanding of all things Canadian (wink), there is no history in Canada of organized violence against people wearing glasses based on a idealogy of sight impaired segregation resulting in a developed myth of the eyeglass wearing other and the still existing residue of overt government sanctioned oppression.

Rather, there is the bully being a bully and using a predictable hook.

I have this horribly vivid vision of three candidates, a buzzer, and a white, middle aged, middle class man in a suit, playing "Oppression Off! The contestant with the worst historic oppression gets to exchange bodies with this white man for two weeks"

I appreciate your explanation but I’m still having some problems with why your bully was a racist and mine was just a bully. We agree that both used what they deemed to be their most powerful “hook”; yours using the colour of your skin, mine using my thick glasses. The point I was trying to make is that ol’ blonde may not have been racist, but just a stupid bully; no different than those that troubled me. I am not completely stupid. I can understand how a KKK headquarters just down the street affected you. Sadly, racism is alive and well in both our countries, but from my lily-white ass’s perspective, a lot that is deemed racist isn’t. It is just stupidity, a totally different malady.

In school I had a black teacher who I thought a total jerk. He wasn’t a jerk because he was black; he was a jerk because I thought he was a bad teacher. He kept me after class one day to give me shit for something and I didn’t think I deserved it. In the heat of the argument, I let loose with a racial slur that I had heard my classmates call him. He went cold for a few seconds but instead of chopping me off at the knees, which he had every right to do, he just asked me if I knew what it meant. I was honest with him and told him that I didn’t. All he said was, “That comment was stupid”, and then without a pause, went back to chastising me about my schoolwork. What he did was give the situation a quick analysis and he was smart enough to come to the correct conclusions. He saw that I wasn’t a racist, but in fact just a stupid kid lashing out. I would like to say that he became my mentor or something great in my life after this, but the reality is, I was too stupid at the time to realize how smart that man really was.

What that experience did teach me, now that I am mature enough to appreciate it, is that not all that appears to be racist is racism. Much of it is just pure stupidity, and that my angry friend, was what I was hoping to suggest to you. Blonde may now be a card-carrying member of the KKK, for all we know, but she could just as easily be a woman who regrets being a stupid kid who said stupid things. But then again, as a lily-white Canadian, what the hell do I know.

Honey, even a white Canadian should know the difference between an asshole and a racist asshole.

A bitch rejects the idea that Canada, which is a diverse nation, has somehow dodged the racism epidemic that defines colonial expansion and the development of North American nations.

http://www.hopesite.ca/remember/history/racism_canada_1.html

Nope...don't buy it.

The bullying I experienced held the framework of traditional racism. It built on a foundation of school segregation based on race that St. Louis had yet to address when this bitch was in grade school. The bullying evolved to manifest the same 'You are not worthy to be in the same room as me...I am offended by the sight of you...we should not share the same drinking fountains....I think you are not quite human' tired ass old school throw back racist stereotype infused verbalization that racists often demonstrate.

In short, trust a bitch on this one.

I'm not just misreading the situation...and I really can't stand it when folks assume that a bitch just lets that knee fly, because if I did I woulnd't be able to function on a daily basis...and confused about whether someone is a racist or just an ass.

I know the difference between a dumb ass grasping desperately at hateful words and a racist.

Actually, I thought you explained that all quite well. But maybe it's because, being raised in the US, I have persistent images in my head of lynchings.

It's one thing when people beat up on you because they think you look weird or because they perceive some weakness they feel compelled to pick at in what many argue is one of the more Darwinistic aspects of growing up. It's ugly and evil, yes, but sadly normal, human, and everywhere.

It's another thing entirely when, because of your skin color, the other six-year-olds picking on you are quite sure it won't matter to anyone at all if they kill you, either accidentally or on purpose, and you know they believe this, and all of you also know that anyone who could and should protect you is more than likely to feel the same way.

Thanks Bitch, I was really getting huffy about a bully i encountered earlier so i googled "IM ANGRY AT THAT BITCH FOR CHASTISING ME" and I came straight to this website. And you really made me feel better. Cool.